...a picture that should satisfy the urge for adventure and romance in people of all ages, grumps included.
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I approached "Ever After" with some trepidation. Never having seen it before, I worried that maybe I was going to be subjected to several hours of puerile boredom. Not to fear. "Ever After" is a fairy tale that adults can enjoy as well as children. Maybe more. Presented on DVD in gorgeous picture and sound, it makes for altogether enchanting entertainment.
So, once upon a time, as the story goes, a Queen of France (played by Jeanne Moreau) decided to set the record straight about her great, great grandmother and invited the brothers Grimm to her palace to tell them the "real" story of Cinderella. Drew Barrymore plays Danielle, the Cinderella of the tale, a girl whose mother has died and whose father remarries a Baroness (Anjelica Huston) with two daughters of her own. Shortly after the marriage, the father dies, leaving Danielle in the care of the stepmother.
The story is familiar and continues in the Cinderella tradition, but it substitutes natural events for the supernatural ones in the traditional children´s version. Of course, there is a handsome young prince (Dougray Scott), the expected sibling rivalry, and the wickedness of the stepmother.
But there are changes. There are far more complications leading up to the night of the ball. Leonardo da Vinci steps in for the fairy godmother. There are no magic pumpkins. But it´s of no matter. The story is more beguiling for its greater realism.
Drew Barrymore is surprisingly perfect as the downtrodden heroine forced to wait hand and foot upon her stepmother and stepsisters. She is spunky, intelligent, and independent, slightly tomboyish yet lovely and feminine as well. She is, in fact, a modern woman well ahead of her time as she clearly demonstrates with her progressive thinking throughout the film. She suggests, for instance, that the king should use the royal treasury to build universities for his people, a notion that does not go down easily in a royal household.
Anjelica Huston as the wicked stepmother is more than a cardboard villain. She conveys a sense of menace, yes, but with a touch of humanity, also, as though she were truly sorry for the being the evil character she is. Dougray Scott as Prince Henry is appropriately dashing, yet he, too, is seen in more than a single light. He is arrogant, a bit snobbish, born to wealth and power but with a longing to be something more substantial in life than a rich, idle onlooker.
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[release]1531[/release]